International

Bodies of Swiss couple missing for 75 years found on glacier

The frozen bodies of a Swiss couple who went missing 75 years ago in the Alps have been found on a shrinking glacier, Swiss media said.

Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin, the parents of seven children, had gone to milk their cows in a meadow above Chandolin in the Valais canton on 15 August 1942.

“We spent our whole lives looking for them, without stopping. We thought that we could give them the funeral they deserved one day,” their youngest daughter, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, 75, told the Lausanne daily Le Matin.

“I can say that after 75 years of waiting this news gives me a deep sense of calm.”

Valais cantonal police said two bodies bearing identity papers had been discovered last week by a worker on Tsanfleuron glacier near a ski lift above Les Diablerets resort at an altitude of 2,615 metres (8,600ft).

DNA testing would be carried out to confirm their identities.

“The bodies were lying near each other. It was a man and a woman wearing clothing dating from the period of world war two,” Bernhard Tschannen, the director of Glacier 3000, told the paper.

“They were perfectly preserved in the glacier and their belongings were intact.”

He told theTribune de Geneve: “We think they may have fallen into a crevasse where they stayed for decades. As the glacier receded, it gave up their bodies.”

Marcelin Dumoulin, 40, a shoemaker, and Francine, 37, a teacher, left five sons and two daughters.

“It was the first time my mother went with him on such an excursion. She was always pregnant and couldn’t climb in the difficult conditions of a glacier,” Udry-Dumoulin said.

“After a while, we children were separated and placed in families. I was lucky to stay with my aunt. We all lived in the region but became strangers.”

She added: “For the funeral, I won’t wear black. I think that white would be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I never lost.”